Greetings from the Land of Enchantment

Monday, September 29, 2008

At home in your own heart

The new shabd I learned this week has really been a blessing--auspicious (one of my favorite words)--it's called Thir Ghar Baisho. It's perfect for me right now as my mind swings wildly one way and then another. In its opening lines, it basically reminds me of everything I need to know right now--what I need to remember with each breath:

thir ghar baishu har jan pi-aaray.satgur tumray kaaj savaaray.

Remain steady in the home of your own self, O belovedservant of the Lord.

The True Guru shall resolve all your affairs.

There is nothing to do. There is no more to be. There is only my prayer and the faith that God the Doer will resolve my affairs. Not the most comfortable place for me to be in; I'm chock full of insecurity and doubt. But it's good practice. And until more is revealed, I get to practice being kind: kind to myself and kind in my thoughts and actions.

In my Heaven, David Byrne is God

It's been a weekend of music--and what a weekend it's been. Things were jump-started with a rehansabhai for a friend's 120-day celebration. This all-night singing fest had me scheduled in at 1:30am! Yikes...I thought surely I would be singing lullabies as everyone else slept the night away, but lots of people were awake--and if they weren't awake when I started, they were awake by the time I finished. (Although, the rousing Jai Bhagauti that followed served to wake up any remaining sleepy heads!) Great fun.

Saturday was the final day of the raag course I participated in this week. Beautiful--and even if I never sing traditional, classical kirtan, it gives me new ideas and helps me learn new shabds.

Sunday morning I was awakened by the phone with a request to cover someone's kirtan slot...soooo, more music, and I got to play the new shabd I'd learned (in my own way of course).

But the penultimate moment was Sunday night--David Byrne in Concert! Amazing! I can't believe I've never seen him before. He was and is a genius and I got so much joy from just watching him. The show was more than I could have ever expected. I was always a fan (back in college) but now I have a renewed zeal for this creative, eccentric, expressive, beautiful man. A must-see show if he's ever in your area!

Friday, September 26, 2008

40 Days until the Election

So today marks the beginning of a very important 40-day sadhana. . . . as our country chooses its next president, please remember: we get what we deserve--so deserve more! Ask more of yourself and of your country than lies and deceit, ask more of your country than ignorance and attachment to philosophies that are so bankrupt that they require another philosophy to cover their $700 Billion dollar belly-up. . .and still the wolves and the crow cry for 'freer, truer markets'.

The financial markets are man-made systems based on good faith, rolling credit, and trust in a future. . .none of which have anything to do with a 'free market' but instead represent a carefully calculated, managed, and massaged public perception of prosperity. The Republicans have been espousing a dead philosophy for more than 20years of my life. It began with Reagan's trickle-down theory--and why any true, blue-blooded laborer ever fell for that line of crap is beyond me, but that's a different question--and continued with Bush's 'war' economy. How an entire generation has forgotten the benefits of the New Deal and managed economies via Government spending on people and not WAR is beyond me, too. It's like mass amnesia, which they use to fuel mass ignorance and hysteria.

I don't think these banks deserve a bailout but I'm not an idiot. I understand that in some measure the government has to intervene or we'll have a Greater Depression, on an epic, world-scale, because these are not 'American Economies'--they are world economies.

Oh--and if you want your daughter (or yourself) to have the right to choose, and you want to have access to healthcare, and you'd like your son or daughter to come home from Iraq, you might think about those issues too in the coming days.

Monday, September 22, 2008

I like Black People

Here are some photos from the Obama rally this past Thursday right here in little ol' Espanola. All credits belong to Convivial Design Group, Abiquiu, NM (also known as Gyan and Prabhu Jot). . . enjoy!

Singing and singing and singing

Well, it's been a weekend filled with singing--to the point that I don't really feel like I've had a weekend. But it was nice to return from Minneapolis and have another performance lined up. Our jetha sang at the International Folk Art Museum in Santa Fe--amazing place. I can't believe I've never been there before. A definite must on my list of things to do this fall--go back and wander around.

Five hour rehearsal on Saturday and a three-hour performance yesterday, then sadhana this morning--I'm about sung out (read: wrung out). But I really can't be because the Raag course begins today. . . .so more singing!

Meanwhile, I continue to get hints from the universe that it's time to record again. So, I'll just continue to wait until the right time and the right funding and the right set comes together--all in guru's time.

Until then, Sing until it hurtsSing until your heartbursts openSing until that finaltear fallsonce and for allSing until love returns and then sing againrejoicing in the fallsing with each breathand each stepSing!

Obamanos!

Well, I'm thoroughly sunburned and still recovering from a day of political rallying here in Espanola....but we made Salon's online magazine (my daily news source) and we might just make a big difference in the general election!

It was fun to be a part of the 'scene' and it has been a HUGE wake-up call for me. One would think that I've lived here long enough to know that I live in a largely latino place; but I have admit that although I've known it intellectually, I haven't really related to this place in that way. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing really.

But in volunteering for the campaign and in hearing the way the campaign addresses local residents, I realize that my 'cultural' blindness may be hampering my ability to really relate to this place: its history, its people, its richness, its ethnicity. I am white, white, white--or gringo as they say around here. And my whiteness (or pinkness as a friend calls it) has always been a sore spot for me. But what can you do? It's who I am...but I did realize that more than 60% of residents in my county speak Spanish as their First language--even if they've lived here their entire lives. And I've been waking up in the morning with Spanish going around in my head, which seems implausible given I don't speak Spanish, but there it is. I guess I'm finally ready to learn to speak it (after 6 years of studying it-ha!)

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

A Word from the Master

What is the enlightened language of the man?

Whenever man has come to realization, all he could say is Sa, that is why Sa Ta Na Ma has first word Sa and music has the Sargam: Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Da Ni Sa. Sa is the experience of the action and reaction, both, spontaneously. You cannot become a bird without feathers and you cannot become spiritual without knowing the spirit.

You have to understand to stand under and then you have to test yourself, your physical, your mental and your spiritual self. Therefore I say to you today: the mind is a constant action and reaction of intellect. When you experience the consciousness, you relate it to infinity. How do you relate it to infinity? Through the mantra. What is a mantra? A word. A word which means what? Nothing, but also means everything. A word, which relates the finite to infinity, which inspires you.

God is infinity but when you consciously, constantly, creatively subject your mind to the object of mantra, then you become divine and infinite. Understand? That is why repeating the naam makes you, naam.

You are what you speak, you are what you eat, you are what you do.

--Yogi Bhajan, July 7, 1976

May you speak with committed language

May you eat food that nourishes the body and the spirit

May your every action upliftyour self and everyone you touch

May your meditation be trueand may you always know your ownsaaaaaayour very own note, your very own song,your very own voice,your very own you.

The Honey and the Honeycomb

In the metaphor that is life and spiritual practice, my teacher often describes the formless and the form as honey and honeycomb. The honeycomb (form) can be either empty and dry or full and sweet--it is the honey (the formless) that is the essence, that provides the meaning.

So, too, people can either attach their lives to the honey or the honeycomb. If they attach to the honey, then wherever they go, they bring their own purpose, meaning, and intention to that place and serve that present moment. They are their own home in the world and they bring a sweetness and a lightness to everything they touch. The formless is free to create form, spontaneously, wherever it finds itself.

If however, they attach to the honeycomb, the form, then their relationship to the honey is not stable; they are insecure, shakey--in fact, if they derive their stability from the honeycomb, which is just an illusion (because remember, honey isn't necessarily present in the honeycomb), then they often find themselves in a dry comb, or a catacomb, and every once in a while, through a moment of grace, a place clothed in honey. But because they are relating to the honeycomb and not the honey, they drown. They panic in the presence of the formless. They are so identified with and attached to places and people and things that no longer feed them, they have so lost themselves to a form that doesn't give them what they want, and yet still they can't let go. It's the essence of addiction.

So, in this metaphor, am I lost in the honeycomb or finally becoming the honey? I have spent years attaching to empty honeycombs: dry, empty shapes and forms of things I believed I wanted--all the while thinking that if I believed enough, hoped enough, loved enough, the empty comb would suddenly be filled with honey. While at the same time, I have always known that I am the honey--at home anywhere in the world--because I identify not with a particular form but with the formless, my essence, my identity as sweetness and light--honey--food of the gods.

soaking

Here in Northern New Mexico, mineral baths are an ancient source of healing, along with the land and the air and the people. I'm lucky enough to live close to a favorite spot, Ojo Caliente, where you can head up after work and soak away all your troubles, visit with friends, and now, hang out in woven hammocks (a nice addition to the regimen).

Last night I soaked and prayed and laughed and came home to my cozy house and my beautiful animals and crawled into bed. I woke up this morning and realized that none of it was important--at least not in the face of what's really important. I got an e-mail this morning from a friend in Houston who's experiencing an entirely different kind of soaking. Her home is flooded; they are living on bottled water, ice, gas camping stoves and a new generator. But she and her family are safe and together--and that's what matters to her. And to me.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Rapprochement

It's a term used in child-development for that going and coming that happens between a toddler and its mother. The mother's only job is to just be there--and let the child go and come, go and come. I often feel like I'm that child and God is the great mother, watching me go and come, go and come, always there, even as I always doubt She will be.

When I left for Minneapolis, my heart was full of hope, again. And hope is a dangerous thing. One of my mentors said, 'just have faith'. So I dropped my agendas, my strategies, and my usual bag o' tricks and decided to just go, be open, and see what opened up before me.

I came home full of that same hope--dangerous territory. Because people and things will always in some way fall short--not because they are not enough, but rather because I still, after all these years, don't know how to ask for what I really need. I still, after all these years, fall headlong into a future not yet written, hoping to be caught and, more often than not, I find myself picking pavement from my knees. In my desire to please--and not push--I end up destroying it all away anyway--sabotage.

So I return to my old adage: Abandon hope all ye who enter here. I return, again and again, to God and wait for faith to awaken in my heart a patience and a compassion that will allow everything--even what I'm most afraid of--to be okay. Cultivating a faith that redirects my hope to what is, right now; a faith that creates in me a grateful heart; a faith that allows me to continue on, despite all my insecurity and fear, because hope--that dangerous animal--has stirred my heart to love. And love can only fall and continue falling--in the faith that when love is love, it is an infinite fall.

Faith: rapprochement, returning again and again,to the one who sustains us all, and prayingthat this time, lovewill be waitingfor meat the end of the infinite fall

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Censorship and the Death of Democracy

There is a great article on Salon today comparing the radical right-wing Republican agenda to extremist Muslim fundamentalists--both are distortions of the religious rhetoric from which they are derived and both are said to be working in the 'name of God'. But not my God and not your God--only theirs. There is but One God--Ek Ong Kaar--and we're all participating in what and how that God gets expressed in the world.

Much has been talked about Sarah Palin's endeavor to ban books from the Wasilla Public Library and the subsequent firing of the librarian. Some of it is true and some isn't; but for Palin to have inquired at all about banning books is frightening enough in today's political climate. Censorship is just the beginning of a historically repeated practice: governments slowly eroding the rights of the people in the name of doing what is 'best' for them--security, safety, morality, what have you. But in reality it's just another name for power and corruption and the absolute erosion of every principle that 'America' stands for.

Anyone recognize the pattern? Or do I have to spell it out? (Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Lenin, Stalin, Mugave, Pol Pot, to name a few--and if we're not careful, we'll soon begin to add the names Bush, Cheney, Palin and McCain to the infamous list; but this time it's on us--fellow citizens of what we like to think of as a democracy that is America--not anyone else.)

Monday, September 08, 2008

Who's Afraid of Sarah Palin?

Just got this off the wires and thought I'd share it here. Friends of mine have been traveling throughout the west on their way home the past few days and have been hearing mixed reviews about the Republican Party's VP pick. . . .some ecstatic, some not so. My earlier post gave you a summary of my take on the situation; but for those who want more information, I give you this from Anne Kilkenny, resident of Wasilla, AK and fellow voter and citizen:

I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992.

Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a

first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her

father was my child's favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a

first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more

City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the

residents of the city.

She is enormously popular; in every way she’s like the most popular

girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and

won't vote for her can't quit smiling when talking about her because

she is a "babe".

It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She

kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents

for seven months.

She is "pro-life". She recently gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby.

There is no cover-up involved, here; Trig is her baby.

She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym.

She is savvy. She doesn't take positions; she just "puts things out

there" and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit.

Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a

champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin’s kind of job is highly

sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his

work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or

so in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their

major source of income. Nor has her life-style ever been anything

like that of native Alaskans.

Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters.

She's smart.

Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about5,000

(at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about

670,000 residents.

During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running

this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been

pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had

gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had

given rise to a recall campaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a “fiscal conservative”. During her 6

years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over

33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the

City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation

(1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a

regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she

promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they

benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration

weren’t enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed

money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it

with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage

the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said

she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a

new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a

multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece

of property that the City didn’t even have clear title to, that was

still in litigation 7 yrs later--to the delight of the lawyers

involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the

community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it

would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that

could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.

While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office

redecorated more than once.

These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city.

As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus

in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will

make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she

proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.

In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she

recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while

she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today's

surplus, borrow for needs.

She’s not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outsideideas or compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren’t generated by

her or her staff. Ideas weren’t evaluated on their merits, but on the

basis of who proposed them.

While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected

City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from

the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents

rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin's

attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew

her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the

Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

Sarah complained about the “old boy’s club” when she first ran for

Mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of "old boys". Palin

fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the City and as

Governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscurepeople, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally

grateful and fiercely loyal--loyal to the point of abusing their power

to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the

case of pressuring the State’s top cop (see below).

As Mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla’s Police Chief because he “intimidated”

her, she told the press. As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska's top

cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure

and she had every legal right to fire him, but it's pretty clear that

an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn't

fire her sister's ex-husband, a State Trooper. Under investigation

for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than 2 dozen

contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she

later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to

replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded

for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew

her support.

She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in

help. The City Council person who personally escorted her around town

introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council

became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She

abruptly fired her loyal City Administrator; even people who didn’t

like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.

Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything

publicly about her.

When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got

the best, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one

of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She hadno background in oil & gas issues. Within months of scoring this great

job which paid $122,400/yr, she was complaining in the press about the

high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the

structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this

Commission (who was also the State Chair of the Republican Party)

engaged in unethical behavior on the job. In a gutsy move which some

undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all

her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and

garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a

gutsy fighter against the “old boys’ club” when she dramatically quit,

exposing this man’s ethics violations (for which he was fined).

As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from

Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel

politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the “bridgeto nowhere” after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.

As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget

guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing

projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative

action restored most of these projects--which had been vetoed simply

because she was not aware of their importance--but with the unobservant

she had gained a reputation as “anti-pork”.

She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State party

leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated

them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a

fiscal conservative.

Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah.

They call her “Sarah Barracuda” because of her unbridled ambition and

predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly

stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made

point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah's

mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and

experienced manager, ran for Mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.

As Governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together of package

of legislation known as “AGIA” that forced the oil companies to march

to the beat of her drum.

Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife

Refuge. She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked to

global warming. She campaigned “as a private citizen” against a state

initiaitive that would have either a) protected salmon streams from

pollution from mines, or b) tied up in the courts all mining in the

state (depending on who you listen to). She has pushed the State’s

lawsuit against the Dept. of the Interior’s decision to list polar

bears as threatened species.

McCain is the oldest person to ever run for President; Sarah will be a

Friday, September 05, 2008

The Current State of Feminism

On the radio this morning, they were telling the story of the year that 'bra burners' gathered at the Miss USA pageant to protest and call for a women's liberation movement. It was 1968, the year I was born. A few years later, my own mother picketed the state capital in Austin, Texas, to protest against the Equal Rights Amendment to the constitution--yes, you read that correctly. She only confessed this to me a few years ago, with some trepidation in her voice. Yet, despite my roots, or perhaps because of the vibration happening the year I was born, I became a feminist (well as much as anyone from my generation could be one).

I quickly learned the limitations of the movement as well as the complete lack of awareness on the part of women my age and younger of the benefits that the women's movement had delivered to to them. Before the early 70s, women couldn't get a credit card without a cosigner, much less buy a car or a house. So even though women still aren't paid the same as men for the same work, we've made progress.

Forty years ago Yogi Bhajan came to the states and within 10 years he began his own women's movement--The Grace of God Movement--to elevate the consciousness of women and in turn heal the planet. He would scoff at those women crying out for 'equal' rights and declared that being equal to a man would not only be impossible but a huge step down for women, who he described as 16 times more intelligent, 16 times more capacity, and 16 times more powerful than men. (The downside is that we're also 16 times more neurotic, insecure, etc., but we don't like to talk about that as much--smile.) That in fact, women were the source of everything--including men.

So as I listen to contemporary women still longing to be "equal" to men, I let out a little sigh. Why be equal when you can be worshipped? Why be equal when you can be infinite? Why be equal when you can be you--and there's nothing equal about that!

Love at First Sight

Our culture espouses this notion of love at first sight from the time we're very young. In movies, books, stories, poetry, and songs, we're fed the idea of the look, the moment, when everything changes. It's an expression of our soul's longing for transformation, for union, our longing to belong--to something, to someone.

Everything has a polarity just as everything has a seed of truth, a kernal of wisdom, in it. So, love at first sight? Is it really just karma, samskaras, patterns, hooks--love at first bite? Or is it that moment when the heart sees, again, for the very first time? That spontaneous opening, that fresh breath of air, that awakens us to possibility? For it's never about the one upon whom the gaze falls; it's about the stirring in our own hearts. The truth in each moment, the opportunity to be new, with each breath, to renew.

So as my gaze rests upon your face, in the presence of the guru, and I sense my heart stirring awake, I understand that I love. Just that--I love. I still have within me--after all the pain and heartache--the capacity to love, to love infinitely, to love infinity--to love at first sight--and see myself, again, for the very first time. And with any luck, finally be able to see you, too.

Thursday, September 04, 2008

Politics and the Not-so-usual Suspects

I have to admit that I've been unwilling to watch the Republican Convention, so I can't pretend to a fair discussion about the events...but I did take an online 'political' test recently which was a confirmation of everything I've known intuitively for years. Neither party is even on the same playing field as me and my ideas. So for years, when I said I didn't see any real difference between the Democrats and the Republicans, I was right--at least from my position out in Far Left Field. But the past 8 years have taught me that whatever nuanced differences there are--they're VERY important! Evidently political rhetoric and the policies they give birth to are like the Richter Magnitude Scale, each 10th of a point along the continuum that is liberal-conservative actually represents a significant difference in effect. A devastating difference.

So abstinence education gives birth to a national spectacle of a teen wedding, talk of 'experience' in the White House is now obsolete, and the last gasp of misogyny as displayed by a 'pit bull' with lipstick is now the Republican Party's answer to women and their 'issues'. Give me a break.

Auspicious Beginnings. . . .Happy Endings

I've always been a big believer in 'signs'...things, people, and events pointing the way to some meaningful something. Sometimes the signs have taken me in entirely 'wrong' directions--painful, delusional holes that I thought I'd never scratch my way out of. Other times, I've been delighted to see the path open up before me in ways I could never have dreamed.

In fact, it's been a motto of mine for years--the way things begin is the way they end. The way you live is the way you die (I've got to do some meditating on that in the coming days and weeks! Life is short and growing shorter with each passing day.) The beginnings of things are so very important. They are the seeds of things to come--the bij--the essence that will one day bear the fruit.

For example, I moved here to New Mexico just over three years ago--and since day one, I've found myself in auspicious surrounds, meeting the people who would give me the opportunities I have today: to work with and serve the Teachings of Yogi Bhajan on a daily basis with some of the greatest living teachers of Kundalini Yoga. Auspicious.

Other auspicious beginnings have come together in the past few weeks. There is a sweetness in the air, a lightness in the heart, and a possibility on the horizon--an opportunity to create something good. Because it's not all signs and wonders; it's also conscious intention and applied intelligence.

But nevertheless, when I got in my car to go to sadhana this morning and the first song I heard on the radio kept repeating the refrain, "put your sailing shoes on" I had to smile. Because yes, I considered it an auspicious sign of things to come.